Megan Shackleton won her third consecutive title to boost her hopes of qualifying for Paralympics in Paris by taking gold in the women’s Class 4 singles at the ITTF Astana Para Open in Kazakhstan, writes Fran Bullock.

The 24-year-old from Todmorden received a walkover in her first match against Yoleidy Johana Fernandez Andrade from Venezuela and was a 3-0 winner against the individual neutral athlete Irina Voronina, who last competed in 2019.

Shackleton secured her third consecutive gold medal in the round-robin class with 3-0 wins against Saule Aidarkhanova and Alexandra Stepanova, both from Kazakhstan.

“I’m glad I came here and did what I needed to do as top seed,” said Shackleton. “It’s been nice to use the matches and build towards Italy next week and hopefully the good form keeps going.

“Winning three tournaments has been a great start to the year but my main focus is just to keep improving, take each match as it comes, keep pushing and hopefully get over the line for Paris.”

Shackleton followed up her singles success by teaming up with Tamara Leonelli Leonelli (women’s class 5-10) to win silver in the doubles - losing 3-1 to world number six Kang Oejeong and world number three Jung Young A.

“I think Tamara and I did a great job in the final,” said Shackleton, “We haven’t played together since 2019 so it wasn’t bad to have such a high-quality match against a tough pair and helpful just to keep building in the women’s doubles.”

Rawtenstall’s Theo Bishop showed promising signs for the future after winning his first medal - a silver in men’s class 7 after losing 3-0 to GB teammate Will Bayley in the final.

Bishop picked up significant wins against European bronze medallist Kevin Dourbecker and Daniyar Muratov on his way to the fina.

“I’m really happy with how I’ve played this tournament,” said Bishop. “I’ve had a few tough tournaments and close losses recently so playing Dourbecker in my first match I was quite nervous as I have lost convincingly to him a few times.

“I’m also feeling great about my match with Deigsler – I have lost three times to him in the fifth, so I knew I had the game to win but I was just desperate to get that monkey off my back and finally get over the line. I was 8-2 and 9-5 down in the fifth but I never lost hope or stopped fighting and that paid off in the end.

“It’s great to finally have my first singles medal and an honour to play Will in the final – hopefully it’s the first of many.”